The Queen of Herbs: A Plant’s-Eye View of the Sephardic Diaspora

Abstract

Abstract:This ethnobotanical, historical study explores modern Sephardic Jews’ abiding affection for ruta graveolens, rue, or ruda (as it is known in Ladino). Folkloric writing on ruda has emphasized the immutability of Mediterranean Jewish folkways, but ruda has a history that reveals how a plant can further a particular diaspora—not the Jewish diaspora from biblical Israel, nor the Sephardic diaspora from medieval Iberia, but the Jewish diaspora from the modern Ottoman Balkans. Ruda offers a fresh perspective on the caterwaul of change engulfing modern Sephardim, refocusing attention from politics to the intimate, tactile, and gendered.